


Born in Lies

by jamlocked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Everyone is part of everything, Nothing is cohesive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamlocked/pseuds/jamlocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a family does not mean life is as it should be. John is a father, Mary is gone. Things fall apart, the centre...is tiny, and holding for now.</p><p>Not fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born in Lies

 

 

It starts, as things so often do, with the birth of a baby. It’s very easy to divide life into _then_ and _now_ when something this big happens, and he’s even got practice. There was his life before Sherlock, after all. Then life with him, but all that has still melted into everything before this moment. 

John holds his daughter in his arms and thinks, _I’m a father_ , and nothing is ever the same again.

 

 

*

 

But the problem with things is that they rarely match what you want, or expect. It’s been a year since he learned what he learned about Mary, and got over it as well as they were able, and he expected this fresh start would mean everything was settled. That he would work part-time, and come home to his family, and go and see Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson, work cases here and there. Have friends, go to dinner, be happy. Because there’s no reason they can’t be happy. Whatever Mary was, it isn’t what she _is_. She’s Mrs Watson now, and seems happy to be so. Motherhood has done for her what Sherlock can never manage; a permanent distraction, a reason to be still, a purpose greater than her own instincts and experience. If she sometimes goes quiet and can’t be drawn, he holds her close for a moment and then makes her go have an evening to herself. When the same itch takes him, she kisses him and pushes him out of the door with instructions to say hello to Sherlock for her, and please try not to get into anything too dangerous. She understands him, he understands her. It works. And for three months, it’s perfect.

Then, and now. Except _now_ involves Sherlock Holmes and the ghosts of his life, and when did the two of them get so tangled that the chaos is something that doesn’t belong to him any more, but gets shared? Sherlock and John. Holmes and Watson. And in this case, Sherlock, and John, and Mycroft. 

There’s a bomb. There’s a kidnap. There’s a secret room in MI6 headquarters, and a beige file on a grey table. Later, he’ll remember the smell of the carpet tiles; new, neutral, all-consuming. He leaves at a run with Sherlock shouting his name, echoing off the blank parts of his mind that can’t process what he’s read, what he’s heard. When he gets home, the baby is being looked after by a neighbour. Mary is gone.

Mary is gone.

And later, Mary is dead, shot by MI6 snipers as she covers the escape of someone John had prayed they would never see again.

 

 

*

 

 

_The Diogenes Club_

 

‘John’s going to be angry, you know.’

Sherlock dismissed this with a shake of his head. Of course he’d be angry. _Angry_ did not concern him. Mycroft seemed to realise it, and stopped examining his brandy against the light of the table lamp.

‘Shouldn’t you be with him?’

‘He’ll come to Baker Street.’

But then what? He’d ask the question that demanded an answer and for the first time in years, Sherlock didn’t know the right thing to say. Mycroft, for once, moved past it.

‘Yes. Yes, he will. Whether _you_ should go there is another matter. You are rather synonymous with the place, brother mine. It won’t be safe.’

‘Nowhere’s _safe_. Not now. Not until this is finished.’

‘Why make it easy? I’ll organise security, of course, but-‘

‘I don’t want your security, they’ll only get in the way. He’s not going to show up and shoot me, that wouldn’t be any fun. He’s probably not even in the country, because he’ll have to regroup. Unless he anticipated this. I wouldn’t put it past him.’

‘All the airports are-‘

‘-like that would stop him. Be realistic, Mycroft.’

Silence fell, and in this place silence meant just that. Not a voice, not a clink of a glass, not the hint of a passing car. He could stand here and close his eyes, and find the perfect peace in which to find the solution, if not for the fact the silence was still full of Mycroft. This room was his, and there was no ease to be found. And Sherlock wasn’t thinking about the puzzle. He was thinking about John.

‘He’s going to want to help. He’ll be a loose canon. If you like, I can-‘

‘You will _not_ get him out of the way, Mycroft. This is about him as much as me.’

He couldn’t stay any longer. He had no answer but electricity fizzed through his nerves, burning his skin from the inside. His thoughts crackled through his mind, too hot to touch but searing themselves into reality. John is going to be angry. John deserves to see this through. And later, if they’re not dead, John may never talk to any of them again.

Mycroft’s voice halted him at the door.

‘There may need to be arrangements made. For the-‘

‘Not _yet_.’

But, yes. He was sure there would have to be arrangements made.

 

 

*

 

 

_221b Baker Street_

 

‘Did you know?’

Sherlock’s barely made the top step before the words erupt from John’s mouth. The look on his face tells him he was expecting the question.

‘John.’

‘Did you _know?_ ’

Sherlock takes off his scarf, and then his coat, and John paces near the entrance to the kitchen in ever-decreasing circles, winding tighter, fists clenched, aiming at a fixed point where he can do nothing but stop, and then explode. Ground zero. 

‘Sherlock. _Did you!?’_

He comes too close. John has to veer off track, and only rights his orbit when Sherlock backs off, his face calm.

‘No.’

‘Did you suspect?’

‘Yes.’

Ten minutes later the tears are coming so fast he can’t breathe, can only choke on air, his aching hand tasting of Sherlock’s blood when he bites his fist. The pain is the only thing centring him from the _other_ pain, the betrayal, the loss, the devastation - again! - of his life at the hands of this man.

‘John, we need to-‘

But no, they don’t need to do anything. He can’t do anything.

‘You’re the target. If you weren’t before, you are now. John, please. This is what he wants, and if you give it to him-‘

Because that’s all that matters. Beating the bad guy, solving the case. But this doesn’t feel like a game, and he is no longer willing to play.

‘I’m going home.’

‘You can’t. That’s the worst place to go.’

‘I’m going home, and you’re not following me.’

‘John, _listen_. You don’t understand.’

‘No, I do. I do, Sherlock. You’re in the middle of playtime, using governments, and the intelligence services, and the bloody…newspapers, and whatever else as your pieces, because that’s your stage. No, that’s _his_ stage. And we’re just the pawns, and _I’m not going to be part of it.’_

He stands up. The room spins, flashing a smiley face one second, and Sherlock’s bloody nose the next. He feels sick. He is definitely going to puke.

‘You don’t understand.’

‘If you say that one more time-‘

‘John. You’ll be…listen. _Listen._ ’

There are hands on his shoulders. He thinks about the heap of black, collapsed like a rag doll in the shadows of that building. The gun like an extra arm. The flash of gold when the balaclava came off.

He throws up on the rug, and Sherlock doesn’t even blink.‘You’ve got something he wants. I think. I’m not sure. But I think.’

What could he possibly have? He has nothing left. He strayed too close to a group of ticking bombs, and they all went off at the same time. Mary is gone. Sherlock lied, again. Mycroft will retreat behind the facade of Westminster. And as for _him_ , when does he ever appear before he’s ready? 

‘I’ve got nothing.’

‘John.’

‘I’ve got n-‘

Except he does. He does. He has _her_ , and he has to get home. He has to pick her up, and hold her tight, and take her somewhere she’ll never be burned by people like this.

‘I’m leaving now.’

‘I’m coming with you.'

‘Follow me, Sherlock, and I will shoot you in the face. We’re done. I’m done.’

 

 

*

 

 

_The Watson Residence_

 

The flush of adrenaline that carried him down the stairs and into a cab is gone, and it takes all his effort to pull money from his pocket and pay the driver. He looks at his flat from the pavement. There are no lights on. He looks at the neighbour’s flat; no lights there either, so she must have gone down all right. Three months old, and no idea that her mother is dead. 

A new round of fat, painful tears burn up behind his eyes, and he doesn’t know why he’s crying any more; whether it’s loss or fury, or some combination of both. Mary said she was done with that life. She promised. She lied, just like Sherlock lied, and he loves her and now she’s gone. Good riddance. And he’d do anything to get her back, but he’s learned his lesson about looking at a body and deciding it’s dead, he’s had that mistake branded into his soul. So he looked at her face. He felt for her pulse. He even checked for that scar under her ear that isn’t really visible, but can be felt as a tiny bump under fingertips. She’s gone, and she won’t be coming back.

He makes himself walk up the path. It wouldn’t be fair to wake everyone now, while it’s so peaceful. He turns his key in the lock, tells himself he’ll hear her cry upstairs and go for her then, tastes the bile in his mouth, and the way his coat smells like cordite and fire. When he was in the army, his clothes used to smell of blood. It was better, maybe. Different. Honest.

He leans against the wall by the front door. Blue lights flash vaguely behind his eyes. The baby gurgles in her sleep and he smiles, he always smiles, because it lets him know she’s alive, safe and warm and dreaming baby dreams of milk, and soft arms, and loving voices. He smiles even when she cries, because her face twists into such an expression of annoyance with the world, with the hold-up of her dinner, with the lack of mother’s comfort when she wants it. He wonders if her tears tomorrow will be just because she’s hungry, or because she’ll miss her mother without knowing it. 

But she’ll never miss her father. He will never do what Mary did. He will not disappear in the night, and never come home again. He will…

…there’s a rustle of cloth. His head turns. He hears his name called, a distant vibration from out near the road. The blue lights flash across the window in a repeating pattern, and he realises what they are a split-second before knowing the sound of his daughter sleeping did not come from his imagination. She’s there, in the living room. He whirls in place, life in slow motion as the lamp clicks on, the child burbles at the sudden intrusion of glare, and James Moriarty reveals himself, sitting in John’s chair, legs crossed, face calm. One hand rests on the head of the family dog, who wags his tail against the floor.

‘ _You_.’

The air leaves his body in a rush. Footsteps are pounding up the garden path. He can hear Lestrade yelling something, and Sherlock snapping a response. There’s a gun in Jim’s other hand, and all John can think is _not near the baby, her ears, she’ll go deaf, not near the baby…_

‘Doctor Watson.’

The two words are drawled out, low and easy, as if half the Met isn’t ten feet away, handcuffs at the ready. John openly stares, and allows anger to burn away the shock, the fear, everything else that’s happened today.

‘What do you want?’

Jim’s eyes roll upwards, flick over the ceiling, but he’s not looking at anything, he’s listening to his own thoughts or the voices in his head, or whatever it is that makes him do these things. John’s seen that look on Sherlock often enough. It’s common to people who don’t live in the real world. And then he stands, so fast that John almost takes a step back. But he won’t yield to this maniac in his own home. Not with his daughter three feet away.

‘Tell your little friends not to open the door, John. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the child.’

He speaks as if the world is at his command. With a threat like that, it is.

‘Sherlock. Stay out there. Keep everyone back.’

‘Is he in there? _John?_ ’

‘Stay back, Sherlock.’

Sherlock will understand from his tone. Jim gives a lazy half-smile, scratches his temple with the barrel of his gun, and turns to the Moses basket with the baby in it. It crosses John’s mind that he could grab him like this, just like he did once before. There are no snipers in the room. Moriarty is in a fitted Westwood suit, cut so sharp there’s no room for concealed weapons. They’re about the same height, but Jim is lithe where John is stocky. He has combat training, but Jim has a gun. And there’s the baby.

‘You’re a lucky man, Doctor Watson.’

‘Am I? Doesn’t feel it.’

Dark eyes turn his way.

‘You found out the truth. Your wife belonged to someone else. Big Brother’s men have saved you the trouble of a messy divorce. You’re free.’

‘Not that you’d know it, but that’s not how human emotions work. What do you want, Moriarty? If you think you’re using my daughter against Sherlock, you should know that I’ll rip your throat out before I let that happen.’

Jim is amused, chuckling in a way that seems obscene in the light of events. Voices murmur at the front door. There’s a _thump_ from somewhere near the rear exit, and army training - and working with Sherlock - tells him that someone probably just stopped the police covering the back.

‘I told Sherlock he and I had one last problem. As it turns out, it’s _you_ and I that have it. Funny how things work out.’

His hand moves towards the baby. John grabs his shoulder, ends up with the gun at his forehead, doesn’t care and shoves him away from her. Jim stumbles, but does nothing to retaliate. Perhaps it’s the low light, or the late hour, or the stress of it all, but he looks tired. There’s a red mark on his cheekbone John hadn’t noticed before, a graze touched with dried blood. His face has hit the floor at some point today.

‘I could just shoot you. That’d solve everything.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

Jim looks to the back door. Then the baby, and he says something in a language John doesn’t recognise. He pulls an envelope from inside his impeccable suit, and tosses it onto the chair.

‘I’ll be in touch, Doctor.’

John doesn’t try to stop him leaving. As soon as the room’s empty, he cradles his sleeping daughter to his cheek, lets her calm his stumbling heart. There are noises from the world outside, but they’re meaningless. Sherlock’s face, there for an instant before disappearing after Moriarty, is an unwelcome relief. He wants to be done with him, but life’s a bitch and you can never have it all. Sherlock is the best equipped to catch Jim. And also, he’s not sure he _can_ be done with him. Mary’s gone. There’s only one person who can help him understand why.

The baby fusses in his arms, a prelude to waking. He walks to the kitchen for a bottle of expressed milk. There are six in the fridge, and he stares at them, the last nourishment her mother will ever provide. He’s crying as he puts one in the warmer, but the child cares nothing for that. She rubs her eyes and yawns, oblivious to what’s been lost, not yet burdened by the ghosts of other people’s lives.

 

 

*

 

 

_The Diogenes Club._

 

Sherlock did not watch his brother. He sat in a chair with his eyes trained at the wall, watching the scene from an angle across the room. Mycroft with his steepled fingers and slicked hair; Mycroft uneasy and knowing he was projecting it; Mycroft so adrift even he couldn’t pull it back. It could be a ruse of course, to make himself seem lost, but given what’s coming it didn’t seem likely.

He wanted to ask him what he’ll do. _Our traditions define us_ \- what’s traditional for disgrace? Public scandal was all the rage these days, a dressing-down in the national press. But Mycroft wasn’t well-known enough for that - though that would change by the time the papers were finished - and he was far too well protected, too clever. No, there would be the traditional exile, the quiet retirement to ‘spend more time with the family’, never mind that he didn’t have a wife or children, and his brother would rather not spend more time with him than necessary. Some might say it was a shame. Things had been improving. But now he knew _why_ they had been improving, and it rather put a damper on things.

There was the other option too. Sherlock was rather afraid it would be the most likely.

‘What did he leave behind? With John?’

‘A cheque.’

‘Substantial, I imagine?’

‘Extremely.’

‘And John ripped it up.’

‘He will, when he opens it.’

Silence, again. Sherlock was comfortable in it. It was Mycroft that sighed, and shifted in his seat.

‘Just get a DNA sample and be done with it.’

‘We’d need one to compare it against.’

He pretended not to see a raise of his brother’s eyebrow.

‘I’m _sure_ , brother, that you’ve had opportunity to collect one at some point.’

Sherlock did not say that he was sure Mycroft did too. Moriarty had been in custody twice in one year, after all, and though the man will have already wiped his records, Mycroft could be relied upon to keep some safe…

…except no, of course, he could not be relied upon at all.

Sherlock stood up, and straightened his coat. Mycroft’s eyes followed the movement of his hands.

‘Pass on my regards to John, if you would. My condolences.’

It was a mark of the strength of their invisible walls that Sherlock did not point out the hypocrisy of that, did not snap what he knew, gave no visible sign of disgust. And Mycroft did not look embarrassed, or ashamed. Though he should, and he would before this was finished. 

 

 

*

 

_The Watson Residence_

 

Sherlock has always looked out of place in his flat. It’s too domestic, and too light, and too full of the evidence of a woman’s taste in decor. It once occurred to John that it’s one of the few places the man hasn’t yet managed to shape to his personality, and force of will. He’d been quite proud of that at the time.

He’s standing over the baby, now. John watches him. He doesn’t blame him. He stands over the baby a lot too.

‘When did you suspect?’

They haven’t talked about this. It’s been two weeks.

‘After the plane. On it. Before I got off.’

‘That’s what your mind palace told you? And you didn’t think to mention it?’

‘I had to check.’

‘You said he was dead. You were sure.’

‘Mary was standing right there.’

Of course. He has figured that out, but it helps to hear it. Not that Sherlock saying things actually means anything. He’s so angry about that, but it’s the way it’s always been. And he has nothing left but him, now. He thinks. He doesn’t want to know.

‘What am I going to do, Sherlock?’

‘There are several options. You could-‘

‘Shut up. Stop talking. I don’t need a list.’

Silence falls. John gets up, and comes to stand over the crib. The baby moves her head, and on instinct he touches her face to check she’s not too warm. Whatever else she might be, she’s Mary’s daughter. The only part of her still in existence; that, and a name that may or may not be real. A file, somewhere, that he won’t be able to read without parts of it being blacked out.

‘I want to tell you something, John. You have to swear you won’t do anything, _anything_ , about it. Until I say so.’

‘All right.’

Sherlock gives him a sharp look, but he’s too tired to respond. There’s no energy left for barriers.

‘Mary’s not the only person we know who works for him.’

‘Oh?’

‘Mycroft.’

…it is not what he expected to hear. And a second after doing so, he can’t understand why he’s not furious, or surprised, or horrified, or anything. It doesn’t seem to matter. Maybe Jim Moriarty is getting his way, infecting everyone with the knowledge that nothing significant happens in life. People are born, they live, they do pointless things, they die, and it does matter, it _does_ , but only if you don’t think about it too hard.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Catch him in the act.’

‘He’s your brother.’

‘Yes.’

Sherlock sounds sad. And that matters.

The baby stirs. John isn’t sure what he feels except that when he thinks about not having her, he wants to murder anyone who’ll try to take her away. But that’s now, and the chances of it not changing are slim to nothing. He understands genetics. He’s versed in nature-over-nuture, and will become more so if things stay as they are.

‘How much money did he leave?’

‘Five million.’

‘Are there any pieces of it left? I’ll analyse-‘

‘No, I burnt it.’

Sherlock radiates satisfaction at that. John sighs, and squeezes his hand into a brief fist.

‘He said he’d be in touch.’

‘Yes. Odd.’

Sherlock’s thinking. His tone is gently amused. Almost fond, and not for the first time John feels sick at the level of fascination Moriarty can inspire, even at the most inappropriate of times. Pointing it out is a losing battle. 

‘What’s odd?’

‘Sentiment, from him.’

What’s odd is why, despite everything, Sherlock likes the man. But no, he wouldn’t peg Jim as sentimental, but he wouldn’t have pegged him for the paternal type either. Or even the straight type. The thought of him connecting with anyone other than Sherlock is incongruous. Which is why it’s so sickening that _Mary_ of all people…

The baby opens her eyes. They’re big, and round, and dark, and he wonders how he never saw it before. How he can see it every day now. His body wants to cry, but there are no tears left in him. She smiles when she focuses on his face, and his heart clenches to something tight, dry and painful. 

‘Do you think it will be alright?’

Sherlock is not the person to ask, but there it is.

‘No. Not really. How can it be?’

‘She might grow up normal.’

‘She won’t. It’ll be good if she does, because then he won’t be interested. But if she’s like him-‘

‘Will she be like him?’

‘Yes. Probably.’

He should take comfort from the thought that she might grow up like Mary, except he can’t.

‘But we can’t overlook what’s important.’

‘What’s that? You never overlook anything, Sherlock.’

A hand rests briefly on his shoulder. ‘Without you, she doesn’t have a chance. The world will have another Moriarty to deal with. With you, it might get another Watson.’

He knows he’s being manipulated. He knows it must have crossed Sherlock’s mind that with this child living here, there’s the potential for a fixed point that Jim might return to. That a daughter might be a curiousity genius can’t resist; that she might be used against even an absentee father; that keeping her means an uncertain future that almost certainly involves conflict, kidnapping, guns, threats, and everything a child should be kept away from. He should take her away, from Sherlock, from Mycroft, from everyone. But there might be nowhere that’s far enough from the eyes of this incestuous little group, and he’s exhausted, and doesn’t know what normal is any more.

‘Thank you. For saying that.’

‘My pleasure.’

 

 

*

 

This is what _now_ is. It’s going to a funeral that only two others attend, organised by the government, and a headstone he had to fight, cajole, and threaten to allow a name to be engraved on. Somewhere for his daughter to come to see her mother, and he thought he did very well to not punch Mycroft at the face he pulled at that.

It’s condolences from friends that he has to pretend to accept, and all the times he doesn’t say _she was never mine_ , and all the ways he has to hold himself together when someone tells him the girl looks just like him.

It’s Sherlock, taking his role of uncle more seriously than anyone could have predicted, and the stray thoughts at night that say _uncle. Really?_ when Sherlock could be seen as co-father from any angle anyone cares to look from. 

It’s his daughter, eliciting cries of childish amazement from the nurses who check on her, and pronounce her very advanced for her age. It’s watching her baby hands complete shape games meant for toddlers, and putting her toys in a row, and putting the spoon straight in her mouth without getting any food on her face. It’s looking at her and knowing she is part of a lifetime’s game, and also its culmination. She’s Jim and Mary, but she’s also John and Sherlock. She’s Mycroft’s mind games and subterfuge, she was born in lies and lives in deception, and sometimes he feels bad, but the rest of the time he knows that it might just be a life she’ll thrive in.

And she’s also six months old, dressed in pink, sitting on a mat and pulling the dog’s ears. She’s smiling, and innocent, and there might yet be a miracle where she grows up to be not like any of them. 

She crawls over and holds her arms up. He picks her up, and shuts his eyes when she wraps her arms around his neck. ‘Da,’ she says, and he nods, kisses her soft black hair, and says, 

‘Yes.’

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just FYI, I do not hate Mary, and do not think Jim is the father of the baby in canon. This was just written for fun, and as a quick what-if.
> 
> Though if Mary doesn't turn out to be Moran, I will be mucho disappointed. Just because it'd be cool. I mean, MORstAN. C'mon Moftiss, it's right there to be used.


End file.
